


Grief Divided

by sharkie335



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Age of Ultron compliant, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Grieving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 16:34:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5877871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkie335/pseuds/sharkie335
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wanda thinks she has to grieve Pietro by herself.  She’s wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grief Divided

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to poisontaster for the beta. This would not be anywhere near as good without her. The character death referenced is Pietro's in Age of Ultron.
> 
> Doushenka mean little soul in Russian

Wanda curled up in a small ball in her room at Avengers’ headquarters. She knew that after everything that had happened with Ultron, she was lucky that they’d given her a second chance, much less a place on the team. 

But she missed Pietro with every beat of her heart. He’d been her only friend, her brother, her constant companion her whole life, and now that it was starting to settle in her bones that he was actually gone, she wasn’t sure what to do.

How could she go on living without him?

She tried to muffle her sobs, not wanting to draw attention to herself. So far, other than a few comments from Captain Rogers about coming to him if she needed anything, and training, she’d been left alone. And she wanted it that way, she really did.

Footsteps outside her door had her holding her breath, trying to be even quieter. They started to pass, and then came back and stopped right at the entrance to her room. She wished fiercely that whoever it was would decide to leave her alone and keep walking.

Then there was a soft knock on the door, and Natasha’s voice: “Wanda? May I come in?”

Wanda didn’t want to answer, but she didn’t know if she’d be in trouble if she ignored her. So she called out, “Can it wait until morning?”

“Not really.” The door creaked as if someone was leaning against it. “I think we need to talk.”

Oh, this was bad. Wanda frantically rewound her day, trying to figure out when she may have screwed up, but she didn’t remember anything. Then Natasha tapped at her door again, reminding Wanda that she was still there, and, swallowing her fear down, she said, “Well, if we need to talk, come in.”

The door opened smoothly, and Natasha stepped inside. She looked perfectly put together, but she always did, even after sparring with all of the younger Avengers for hours. She didn’t look upset, which Wanda took as reassuring, but she wasn’t smiling either. She realized she needed to deal with whatever brought Natasha to her door so late, so she said, “What can I help you with, Natasha?”

Natasha flashed a small smile. “You know, Steve wants to know why you call me by my first name, but he gets ‘Captain Rogers.’” 

“Oh! I just - he’s Captain Rogers. Even in Slovenkia, we knew about him. I can’t call him Steve - it wouldn’t be right.” Wanda took a deep breath. “But is that why you’re here?”

“Not really,” Natasha said, crossing the room and leaning against the desk that was next to the bed. “I just thought it might help you relax a little bit. I’m here because we’re worried about you.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” Wanda asked. “And why? I’m doing my job.”

“You’re doing it amazingly well,” Natasha said. “That’s part of what has us worried. And before you ask again, ‘we’ is me, Steve, and Sam.”

“How is my performing well a problem?” Wanda brought her hand up and gnawed on her thumbnail - a habit she’d been trying to break her whole life it seemed. It had only gotten worse since - well, since she got here.

“It’s not, really.” Natasha smiled a little more broadly. “But you’ve suffered several major losses, losses that all three of us can sympathize with, and we’re concerned that you’re not taking care of yourself.”

Wanda’s first thought was to deny it, to claim to be fine, and that she just wanted to be left alone to do her job. But Natasha didn’t say anything, her face neutral and open, and Wanda suddenly felt the need to tell her _everything_. That would take all night, though, and she sincerely doubted that Natasha wanted to hear all of it.

So just the one thing, then. “I miss Pietro,” she said, proud that her voice only wavered a little. “He was my brother in arms, my only remaining family, the only one who knew everything about me and now he’s gone.”

Natasha gestured towards the bed. “Can I sit?” she asked, and Wanda nodded, telling herself that she was not going to cry.

Sitting down on the bed within touching distance, Natasha said, “I don’t know if I had any siblings. My earliest memories are of my trainers. But when I lost my connection to the other Black Widows, and again when I thought I lost Clint, I ached inside, fiercely. I wasn’t sure that I’d ever be able to get over it.”

“But you did,” Wanda said softly. “How?”

“I found people who care for me, who made it worth the risk to care in return,” she said. “First Clint, and Coulson, and Fury, and then Steve and Sam. Someday I hope to include you in that number.”

“Why?” Wanda’s voice broke. “I tried to kill you. I tried to kill _everyone_.”

“And when you realized what Ultron was trying to do, you came to us and told us what was happening.” Natasha wasn’t touching Wanda, but Wanda felt as though she was wrapping an arm around her and holding with just the sound of her voice. “There’s not a single one of us who doesn’t understand doing something extreme because of what’s happened to us. You picked the right thing to do, when it came down to it.”

Wanda tried to take a deep breath, but it was more like a sob than she cared to admit. “If we hadn’t helped him, then Pietro would still be alive.”

“Maybe,” Natasha said, her voice even but sad. “Or maybe Ultron would’ve killed you both for not helping him in his plans. And if that had happened, then Ultron might have succeeded.”

No longer able to contain her tears, Wanda buried her face in her hands and sobbed softly. “I know, but I can’t help thinking what if? He was the last piece of my family.”

Natasha’s hand landed on Wanda’s back, not quite a hug, but just touching her gently. “I know, doushenka. But would he want this for you? For you to isolate yourself from everyone in the world while mourning him?”

“N-no.” Wanda wiped at her eyes, trying to stop the tears that were flowing like they’d never end. She realized that this was the first time she’d allowed anyone to see her cry since they’d buried Pietro, but she didn’t feel judged, or found wanting. Instead, she felt a bit like she could - perhaps - trust Natasha to know that she was grieving her brother, not what they’d done together.

“It’s okay to cry,” Natasha said. “That was a hard lesson for me to learn, too. It took Clint and Coulson _years_ to teach me that, after I thought that any emotion has been forced out of me. It took them even longer for them to teach me to trust them with my true self and know that they wouldn’t take advantage.”

The hand on Wanda’s back started to rub in slow circles, soothing in a way that Wanda faintly remembered her mother doing when she had a nightmare as a small child. “No one expects that of you right away, Wanda. We just want you to know that if - when - you’re ready, we’ll be here for you.”

“You said you’ve all done something extreme. What did _you_ do?” Wanda asked without thinking, and then realized that it was a personal question. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that.”

“No, I wouldn’t have mentioned it if I wasn’t willing to tell you. Not for anyone else, though - those are their stories to tell.”

“Okay,” Wanda said, lifting her head and meeting Natasha’s eyes. “If you’re willing to tell me, I would like to know.”

“I’ve told all of you about my training in the Red Room, right?” Natasha’s voice stayed even, her body relaxed, but there was a tension in the room that hadn’t been there just a minute before.

“The Russians trained you to be an assassin.” Wanda answered. “I saw when I - well, when I went into your mind.”

Natasha’s mouth curved up into a small smile, but there was no humor behind it. “Yes. I wasn’t the only one - the Red Room had been around for a long time and there were always girls coming into the program to become Black Widows. I’m the only one left, though.”

“Did you - “ Wanda didn’t quite know how to ask the question, but thankfully Natasha took it out of her hands.

“No, I didn’t kill the other Black Widows. I didn’t have to. After I went rogue, the FSB dismantled the program. I don’t know what happened to the other girls, including the ones I trained with. But I do know what happened to our instructors.”

There was a heavy pause, and Wanda could barely breathe, waiting to hear.

“I killed them.” Natasha looked neither proud nor ashamed, simply as if she was stating a fact. “I found them all and, as they begged for their lives, I put a bullet in their brains. So, you see, I know what it is to want revenge. To actively seek to hurt those who have hurt you. But you have to know when to let it go, too, because otherwise it will destroy you.”

“You at least got to kill them,” Wanda murmured.

“Yes, I did. And it did nothing to ease the pain inside me, doushenka. Only time and learning that I have actual friends did that.”

Natasha’s hand continued to rub small circles on Wanda’s back. “No one expects you to simply forget Pietro,” she said. “You’ve spent your whole life being trained to hate people like Steve and me, and I’m sure at some level you blame us for Pietro’s death - “

“I don’t!” Wanda said, trying to sound convincing, but she sounded hollow to her own ears.

“You do, doushenka. And none of us blame you for that. Mostly because we’re busy blaming ourselves. You and Pietro were children, and we took you into a combat zone.”

“You didn’t take us anywhere. We went because we were needed.”

“You were,” Natasha said, her voice soothing. “We would have lost, and lost badly, if you and your brother hadn’t helped us. But it’s a fact that if it wasn’t for us, Ultron wouldn’t have ever been created in the first place.” 

“None of us blame you for your grief.” Natasha closed her eyes, and when she opened them again they glistened as if she was holding back tears of her own. “Agent Coulson told me when I joined SHIELD that grief divided is grief lessened. Won’t you let me help you with yours?”

Wanda started sobbing again at the kindness in Natasha’s words, and as Natasha wrapped her arm around Wanda’s shoulder and pulled her into a hug, she felt like she might finally be able to confide her pain to someone.


End file.
